When Showtime announced the gigantic cast list for “Twin Peaks: The Return,” comprised of more than 200 actors, it became a game to guess what kind of characters each would be playing and how they’d factor into the story. Of course, nobody could’ve predicted some of the placements — that Michael Cera would be a Brando impersonator or Amanda Seyfried would be a drug addict and also Shelly’s daughter.

Arguably most surprising, however, has been Matthew Lillard’s turn as a school principal-turned-murder suspect — and unwitting pawn in a supernatural conspiracy. Lillard’s Bill Hastings has only appeared in three parts so far — more than most of the new actors, to be fair. And each of his appearances has been filled with raw emotion, drama and, well, smoke. By conjuring up as much snot as a person could ever create, Lillard has turned Hastings into a memorable human character in a sea of Lynchian insanity.

TheWrap spoke with Lillard about working with David Lynch for the first time. During a phone interview the “Scream” and “Serial Mom” actor discussed how he dealt with the secrecy that shrouded the production and how he managed to evoke the feelings of a man free-falling into the depths of hysteria before the audience’s very eyes.

TheWrap: I know that the audition process has been secretive for a lot of the actors, but I’m curious as to what you knew going in.

Lillard: Literally nothing. The one thing you can say about this whole process is that we, as the actors, really feel like an element in his world. Once you say yes, your capacity to control anything is out the door. You don’t know the script. The only thing you know about your character is what you can deduce between the lines. you have no idea of anyone else’s character unless they’re in the scene with you. You have no idea where this story falls in the storyline — so you are quite literally a piece in the big David Lynch jigsaw puzzle, but you don’t know if you’re a corner or an edge piece. You don’t know what you are, so you just show up on set, hit your mark, say your line and do the best you can.

It’s kind of this beautiful experience because there’s nothing you can do besides what you’re given. You can’t worry about anything else. It kind of harkens back to the David Mamet of it all — to just show up, say your lines and make the right face.

How familiar were you with David Lynch‘s work before auditioning?
I’ve seen a bunch of movies. I now have many new Twitter followers because of [“Twin Peaks”] but I was never a Lynch sort of guy. I know there are people out there who love and adore him. I sort of love and adore the man and I enjoy his work a lot, but I was never a “Twin Peaks” fanatic.

Did you see “Twin Peaks” beforehand?
No, I’ve never watched the show.

You’ve never seen “Twin Peaks?”
When it broke out I was running around New York City… and I wasn’t stopping in my mid-20s to watch TV shows. I remember hearing about it and I remember they were putting together the show again, which I thought was an amazing moment for David Lynch, so I was interested to see what it was, but I didn’t grow up on it.

What’s been the weirdest surprise for you watching it?Episode 8 Is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen on TV. I have no idea where that is or what that comes from. The one thing I can say in all of this is I don’t know where it’s going, I don’t know what it’s going to be. But in working with him, the brief time that I did, you sort of fall in love with the man that he is. He’s a creative genius and his energy is infectious — so in being around him and falling in love with him, you kind of put your faith in him. I don’t care where it goes, I just want to serve his vision.

Not to sound too Pollyanna about it, but when you get a guy who’s bleeding with energy and leading with joy and he’s very clear as to what he wants, that’s like the best to ever get offered as an actor.

I’m fascinated by Bill Hastings for a couple reasons. For one, he’s a conspiracy theorist. Do you know anything about that world on the internet?No, not really. I have seen the Search for the Zone… but no that’s not my jam.

The second thing was how emotional and raw Bill Hastings is as he basically loses his mind on camera. How do you approach that?A scene like that comes along and you’re super aware of the fact that if you go through that scene faking it, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life. When that kind of moment comes up in your career, when you know that a bunch of people are going to be watching and there’s huge emotional stakes, that kind of emotional expectation is daunting. I think that if you do your job well, if you’re somebody who believes that there’s a craft to acting — that it’s more than just Twitter followers and having great abs — than you’re ready for that moment when it comes.

I watched it last night or two nights ago for the first time and it’s a crazy scene. It’s crazy. My eyes are swollen because I’ve been crying. The energy there is animalistic and it’s really weird. I was watching it, crying myself and laughing hysterically. It’s the weirdest experience I’ve ever had watching myself act.

How has the reaction been?I’m a Twitter voyeur, so I like to read people and never really tweet. I only tweet when I’m drunk in an airport. I’ve had an on-again, off relationship with the people in the internet world. People think I’m a hack, people think I’m a has-been, all of those things. But the people that love “Twin Peaks” love that scene and have no problem finding me and seeking out my handle and saying these incredible things.

It’s funny, I thought I was in Episode 1 and Episode 2 and I thought, this scene’s going to be in Episode 3 or 4. I was away for the weekend picking up my kids at camp and all of a sudden, somebody texted me saying “dude, you’re incredible.” Then I went on my Twitter feed and it was like thousands — well not thousands — but tons of people had reached out saying, “congratulations you were fantastic.” It’s nice. It feels good. In this crazy business, you’re always trying to do good work and sometimes people think you suck and sometimes people think you’re good. I’ve been in this business for 20-plus years and this is a good moment.

So you didn’t know what episodes you were going to be in at all?No idea. We were at the premiere and my wife’s asked, “are you in these these two episodes” and I was like, “no.” I literally thought I was towards the end of the whole thing, so I had no idea and there I was.
You have no idea what you’re doing and how it’s going to end up and where he’s going to put you. For a second there I was like “oh maybe they cut out my thing.” Oh, maybe it didn’t work, who knows. That’s sort of how on the outside you are.

So if I were to ask you if you know anything…I don’t know anything. Literally in the scenes in Episode 9 Laura Dern is there and Miguel [Ferrer] — god bless his heart. They have that scene in that room. Now, I saw Laura Dern walking around. She wasn’t even in my take. They didn’t want the connection between us in that room.

So you weren’t even sure if you were going to be in the same vicinity as Laura Dern.
I didn’t know David Lynch was in my scene. So I was leaving and they were setting up that shot. I didn’t even know Laura Dern was in the show. I was leaving and I just saw Laura Dern walking around in this white wig.

Those cutaway lines are redacted in my script, so they were cut off.

So basically you only got your lines.
Not basically. That’s it! You only get your lines. You get the conversation. Other than that, that’s it. I literally have nothing.

I have to say, for whatever it’s worth, Showtime has given this auteur a complete blank canvas and they’ve given him free reign to do with it what he wants to do, to create the world he wants to create, the show he wants to make. Within that, you’re just serving his vision.

I think it’s a great thing for Hollywood in that so much of our business is being run by numbers, being run by the bottom dollar and money. Here, Showtime’s making a bet on art. And for my part, I hope to god that it pays off in spades. It could be really nice for people to start making things they love in the name of creative vision and art.

That’s my soapbox.

'Twin Peaks': All the Big Questions We Have Before the Finale (Photos)

At just under 18 hours long, the "Twin Peaks" revival is the longest David Lynch movie ever, so it's only natural that we're gonna have a whole lot of questions nine hours in. There are, of course, lingering questions from the original series -- but for now let's focus on the many new questions we have before the finale (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD).

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One of the biggest twists of the season was when it was revealed that Diane (Laura Dern) was actually a tulpa, or doppelganger. She had been working for Evil Cooper (or Mr. C as he is known) after he raped her decades ago. But what happened to the real Diane and what was the point of creating the tulpa in the first place?

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Bad Coop has a lot of weird scenes in which he seems to be setting the stage for something. That something, though, is still totally unknown at this point. Which leads to probably the biggest question in the revival: After 25 years in the real world, what exactly he trying to accomplish?

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So while everybody thinks the real Coop is somebody named Dougie Jones, the real Dougie Jones is gone now, having been turned into a ball bearing after taking the real Coop's place in the Black Lodge. MIKE says Dougie was "manufactured" for the purpose of that swap. Even though real Coop is back, we still don't know who created Dougie and made the swap.

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We're worried about Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn). For three parts, she tries to leave her home and can't, thanks in part to her husband Charlie. She's acting erratically, jumping from one personality to another. In Part 13 she even says she's a completely different person. "I'm not sure who I am," she says. "But I'm not me" (which is the same thing Diane said before revealing herself as a tulpa). In Part 16, she finally gets to the Roadhouse and becomes herself again only to wake up in a white room. Is she a tulpa and is the real Audrey being held somewhere?

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In Part 7, Sheriff Truman calls up Dr. Hayward to ask him about the night Evil Doppelganger Coop came out of the Lodge at the end of season 2. Dr. Hawyard says he took Coop to the hospital for a work-up, and then later found him in Intensive Care with that "strange face" (presumably when BOB shows through). He speculates that Coop was checking on Audrey, who was in a coma after the explosion at the bank. Might that imply that Bad Coop sexually assaulted Audrey? Is she still in the coma?

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We're not surprised that Laura Palmer's mother Sarah hasn't had a good time since the death of both her daughter and her husband, but what has she been up to? In Part 12 she has a freakout at a grocery store and in Part 13, she's seen sitting in front of a boxing match that continuously repeats herself. Is she just traumatically haunted or does she know something? Her history with visions says the latter, but we're not sure.

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Ray disappeared into the Black Lodge after Evil Coop shot him. It could've been just the ring that did it, but what if there's a connection between Ray and the Black Lodge? He said he was hired by Phillip Jeffries (or a man saying he was him) so there has to be something here. Was he another doppelganger, summoned like Dougie?

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Speaking of which, what happened to Phillip Jeffries? He's a teapot now.

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And then there's this box in New York. When Coop tried to leave the Black Lodge he landed on it, was sucked into it and floated through it before ending up in some other weird dimension. Nobody knows who put the box there and paid some kid to stare at it all day, or what exactly it's supposed to do. Additionally, Albert reveals that Bad Coop knows about it and at one point he was there, along with a bald man in a lab coat.

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What happened between Bobby and Shelly? We find out in Part 11 that Shelly's last name is "Briggs," meaning the two original series lovebirds married at some point. They even had a daughter, Becky. But we see Shelly making goo-goo eyes at a drug dealer named Red (Balthazar Getty), so they're clearly not together anymore.

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What's going on with that magic drug dealer anyway? This character, credited as Red, showed up at the Roadhouse in Part 2, where he shot a finger gun at Shelly. In Part 11, we learn he and Shelly are an item, since she excuses herself from a family meeting to make out with him and tell him she'll meet up with him later. Then, in Part 6, he reveals himself as the person Richard is working for -- and he does a bizarre magic trick with a dime that freaks Richard out something fierce.

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We were treated to a strange scene in Part 11 where Bobby goes to investigate gun shots and comes across a woman screaming in her car about somebody being sick. Then we're introduced to a young girl in the passenger's seat who's practically leaking green fluids as Bobby looks on. Just, what?

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In Part 10, the Log Lady once again calls Hawk to give him a message, which reads in part, "the Truman brothers are both true men, they are your brothers," "the glow is dying" and "Laura is the one." But what does it all mean?

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The headless body introduced in the beginning of the series belonged to Major Briggs, who Bill Hastings claims to have met in an alternate reality he and the deceased Ruth Davenport called "the Zone." And he and Ruth found coordinates for Briggs in a "secure military database," and after handing them over Briggs started to float away while saying "Cooper. Cooper." And then Briggs's head disappeared. Where do we even begin with this?

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Luckily, when the FBI goes to the site -- directed by Hastings -- they do eventually find Ruth's body. However, we still don't know why her head and body were separated.

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25 years earlier, Briggs had given his wife a small tube to hide until Bobby, Sheriff Truman and Hawk all visited together. The tub contained some cryptic instructions that only Bobby could understand, as well as a copy of the transmission from outer space that Project Blue Book had received 25 years earlier. The one that was a bunch of normal gibberish but with "Cooper/Cooper" tossed in the mix. Is the implication, then, that Major Briggs is the one who sent that transmission?

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We should also note that the transmission, which Briggs showed Cooper way back in season 2, would have been sent before Briggs went into hiding. However, given that Briggs had not aged when Hastings and Ruth met him indicates that "the Zone" works differently than Black Lodge that Coop was locked in for decades. Could there be a time travel element in this?

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And why was Dougie's wedding ring inside Major Briggs' body?

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By the way: Bill's wife seems to have known Evil Doppelganger Coop -- who murdered her in Part 2. Were the other people in the Zone working with Bad Coop somehow?

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So it turns out, according to Part 9, that Duncan Todd (Patrick Fischler) was working for Bad Coop (before his death)-- and thus Bad Coop was the one sending assassins after Dougie/Good Coop. How much did Bad Coop know about what's going on with Dougie?

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Is it just a coincidence that Johnny knocked a picture of White Tail Falls off the wall when he ran into it? What is the significance of that? And what was the point of that scene anyway?

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At the end of Part 9, we see a young woman named Ella (Sky Ferrera) meet with a friend at the Roadhouse. She has a weird rash on her armpit, and she and her friend exchange weird sentences like "Have you see that penguin?" So, yeah, what does this have to do with anything?

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In Part 1, our favorite otherworldly giant (Carel Struycken) returned to present Agent Cooper with some knew cryptic sayings: "Remember 430. Richard and Linda. Two birds with one stone." We know now who Richard and Linda both are but what is their connection, especially now that Richard is most likely dead?

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As Agent Cooper was journeying out of the Black Lodge toward reality in Part 3, he encountered the spectre of Ronette Pulaski (Phoebe Augustine) in some new extra-dimensional space. She warned him that he needed to hurry because "my mother is coming" -- possibly implying a new major paranormal force. And another thing the giant said was, "It is in our house now," which maybe could be referring to that "mother." But what is it?

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In Part 8, we saw a floating woman with what looked like an umbilical cord coming out of her face -- and an image of BOB appearing on the cord. So is this "Mother?"

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Who is the woman in the evening gown (credited as "Senorita Dido" and played by actress Joy Nash) with the Giant in Part 8? They live on some part of the spectral plane and appear to have been monitoring that mysterious Mother somehow -- and they apparently created Laura Palmer in response to seeing BOB's face in the umbilical cord. So... what's all that?

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What's the deal with the hobo ghosts, aka the woodsmen? We'd seen them a couple times in the "Twin Peaks" revival in random spots, but they were front and center in Part 8, seemingly resurrecting Bad Coop and then showing up all over New Mexico in the 1940s and '50s. But what did they actually <em>do</em>? And where did they come from? Did the atomic bomb test bring them into this world from the Lodge?

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Who was the girl in New Mexico? The frog bug thing, which we believe is BOB, crawled into her mouth, but we have no idea who she is. Sarah Palmer maybe? Could the bug actually be the Laura spirit rather than BOB?

In that other dimension with Ronette and the woman (listed in the credits as "Naidu") whose eyes were covered in flesh, we see a couple of strange machines -- one labeled 15 and the other, which transported Coop to the real world, labeled 3. Later, Coop finds a hotel key from the Great Northern in Twin Peaks for room 315, which is the room Coop stayed in during the original series. Connected?

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In Part 6, Hawk took apart one of the bathroom stall doors and discovered three missing pages from Laura Palmer's diary -- including the page on which she wrote the supernatural message from Annie from "Fire Walk With Me." Hawk speculates in Part 7 that Leland Palmer hid them there when they brought him in for questioning for Jacques Renault's murder. But where's the other missing page, and what does it say?

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How's Annie? Heather Graham has said she wasn't returning for the "Twin Peaks" revival, which could be misdirection -- or it could mean she's dead or missing or some other nefarious "Twin Peaks" thing. We've had multiple reminders of her important role in the past, though, which would seem to imply she's still important now, in some way.

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What is this black box sitting in an ashtray in Buenos Aires? In Part 5 we see it twice, first when the assassins trying to kill Dougie Jones report in to a woman named Lorraine, who then calls the box. Then, later, Bad Coop seemingly also calls the box from prison, after which it morphs into a small piece of metal. Also, Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie) is said to have disappeared from Buenos Aires in "Fire Walk With Me." And Rosenfield says Bad Coop and Jeffries worked together on a thing together in Colombia at some point? And apparently Phillip wants to kill Bad Coop. So what does all this mean and how do the dots connect?

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What was that weird hum/ringing sound that Ben Horne and Beverly Paige heard in the Great Northern in Part 7? It seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere -- could this be Josie Packard continuing to haunt the place? Remember, Ben Horne previously saw her face in a drawer pull in season 2 after she died.

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While Carl is in town, he has a sort of encounter with Richard Horne, when he witnesses Richard plows over a young boy with his truck. In a weird way, we could consider this Carl's "Richard and Linda" day, though that could be a reach. Also, Carl seemingly saw the boy's soul float away after he died -- we know that Carl likely was taken to the Lodge when he was young, but why would a Lodge-related vision manifest for him now?

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We finally get to meet the kid Lucy was pregnant with all through the original series, and he's a weirdo named Wally Brando played by Michael Cera who makes this really bizarre speech to Sheriff Other Truman (Robert Forster). Somehow this scene is weirder than everything else in the show thus far. What the hell?

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We examine all the new mysteries (major spoilers ahead)

At just under 18 hours long, the "Twin Peaks" revival is the longest David Lynch movie ever, so it's only natural that we're gonna have a whole lot of questions nine hours in. There are, of course, lingering questions from the original series -- but for now let's focus on the many new questions we have before the finale (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD).